The expansion certainly gave us a few new talking points when it comes to the history of the Isu. The first, is that of Reda. Our young merchant friend has been a riddle for lore fans for some time, namely as to how he could have survived from the Origins game in pre-BC Egypt through to Valhalla's dark ages nearly a thousand years later. The most obvious answer was that he was an Isu, and that is essentially confirmed within Dawn of Ragnarök when he can be found living and trading amongst the dwarves of Svartalfheim. When pressed, he also reveals that he has a plan to survive Ragnarök (the Toba Catastrophe) and has been learning many secrets from none other than Loki himself, suggesting that our little friend may yet have further tricks up his sleeves for future appearances in the franchise.
By far the biggest revelation though is that of Light Elves now being confirmed as part of the wider narrative. You are probably most familiar with Elves (or Eldar) from other fantasy settings, perhaps most notably from the likes of The Lord of the Rings, whereby they are usually depicted as an ancient race often pre-dating that of mankind. Whilst we are still not entirely sure if they are simply a subset of the Isu akin to the status of Dwarves, we have previously theorised that there was an even older precursor race to the Isu present in Assassin's Creed, as there has been some previous evidence of their existence across the games. The linked article goes into greater detail, but the most prominent example is stated by the Isu themselves within the Ancient Mechanisms in Assassin’s Creed Origins:

“None could change what we discovered. The stories written into the walls of these rooms. By whom, we never knew.”

It is therefore very telling that the Elven sites within the expansion are referred to as “ancient”, even to an Isu as old as Havi, who is also seemingly unable to read the writing or glyphs of the “Children of Light”. We are told that they were ultimately wiped out from the mortal realms by Surtr's forces long ago, which also fits with the legends purported by the well recognised Prose Edda, whereby the Elves apparently fled to the safety of “heavenly realms” such as Andlang and Víðbláinn.

With the Elves apparently now existing on another spiritual plane or higher dimension (perhaps the Grey itself), we can also note that the elvish device that Havi encounters (the so called “Salakar” - Vessel of Souls) does not run in the same way as Isu technology does, and evidently appears to use “magic”. This of course fits with the fantasy theme of Elves themselves, and we traditionally see them depicted as being both magical and spiritual beings in other IPs. At their mention here, I was immediately reminded of the Celestial Suit armor set from Odyssey. Not only does the armor set mentions that it is “A remnant of the past who inspires fear and wonder in those worshiping the wrong gods”, but the very mention of the word celestial immediately conjures up imagery of heaven, the sky, and light. We cannot fail to notice that the armor set gives an appearance that is very similar to that of Celebrimbor, the secondary protagonist of the popular Shadow of Mordor games, who too was of course an Elf.

I would be remiss not to also mention the recent Elf armor set released for Valhalla as well. The marketing description states that it was modelled after the Ljósálfar, which was yet another term for the Light Elves. Finally, the mount is also a “Celestial unicorn”.



The Salakar is mentioned to have retained a little of Surtr's spirit, suggesting that whomever has touched the device still resides inside to some degree, as also suggested by the brief flash of Baldr visible within it. We've seen this imprinting of consciousness on objects displayed previously in the franchise, such as Shao Jun evidently being tied to a Precursor Box in the Chronicles Russia game. At the conclusion of this expansion though, Havi reveals the location of the Salakar to none other than Hyrrokin, or as we more commonly refer to her – Juno. The timing of this is very interesting. Namely as we already know that she has the mead and Yggdrasil technology as depicted within the main Valhalla game, something she even states here. We know this in turn lead to her research within digital transcendence both for Aita and herself. Though we do not see this on screen, we are therefore lead to believe that Juno ultimately travelled to obtain the Salakar, mere days before the Ragnarök cataclysm that devastated the world.

This in turn opens up a whole other avenue of possibilities. If Juno touched the Salakar, or indeed managed to store it somewhere safely, her essence is theoretically saved somewhere out there. If someone could find a way to activate it, is this Ubisoft's potential “get out” policy to bring back its most famous villainess? It’s certainly an interesting possibility. There is of course one even more chilling realisation though. If scores of Elves had too once touched the device, there is every possibility that an even more ancient and vengeance filled precursor race could be unleashed upon the Earth. Of course the attraction of yet more hidden lost technology, or that of actual magic itself, may prove too alluring to the likes of Abstergo to miss. If the Salakar is still out there in the modern world, it could hold some very major consequences for the Assassin's Creed universe.